Breaking out of the gulag

There's a passage from the third book of the Gulag Archepelego, where two guys break out of a gulag in Kazakhstan, trek across the burning stepp for five days without food or water before reaching civilization. Right before the find a spring, the one guy says to the other - I cannot go on and am going to die, kill me and drink my blood so that you don't die here too.

We climbed the worst pass of the Cascades in near 100 degree heat yesterday and I think it was the closest I will ever come in my life to truly understand what that must have been like for those two guys. No worries though, both Eric and I are still alive. The pass we crossed was over 5,400 feet and it took us about 10 hours (with breaks) to acomplish. It helped greatly that we took a two hour break under a bridge by a mountain stream which we soaked our legs in and got a reprieve from the hot sun. The cold pure mountain water - necter from the gods - also helped greatly.

Since my last post, we left Eric's friend's parent's house and biked back toward the city. We ate a fish (smoked salmon) and chips lunch on the pier and after having spent more time eating and sleeping that biking, the bike trip was going great! That was all to change, once we ferried across the Puget Sound to the islands, where were quite hilly. I was still fresh and full of energy and burned myself out a bit on the hills, once we reached the mainland again, the land was more flat.

We road through some nice farm country up to the foothills of the Cascades were we camped at Sedro-Woolley. The next day we pushed on into the mountains and followed a beautiful winding road along a picturesque river. After a steep climb in the mountains, we camped in Diablo in a pine grove along a mountain river. We were so sore, we decided to take an ice bath in the river - it was the best thing I've ever done in my life! I cannot describe how great those numbing cold waters felt on my legs.

After our break from the 103F heat, we're going to keep going on to another, less intense pass. SOrry for the lack of photos - the library computer won't let me hook up the camara. I will add photos as soon as I can, so keep checking back!